You Don't Bring A Demon To A Snowball Fight
by Boosette
Summary: If the apocalypse doesn't get them, the weather just might. (In which Abbie is 1781% DONE with winter, but Ichabod's standard for it is somewhat different.)


Abbie met the fourth of January at five in the morning with a snow shovel, a bucket of boiling water, and the temptation to call in and swap shifts with _anyone_ working swing that day. Maintanence wouldn't show up with the snowblower until later — her building was last on their schedule, the same few guys were responsible for four or five complexes scattered across town.

Didn't make not being able to _see the walk_ any less annoying, or the maybe-ice slicks under the calf-deep snow any more welcome. Could be worse — she _could_ have to fight off a horde of demons in addition to the drift that had formed around her car overnight.

The drift that turned eight inches into two feet. She would've turned right back around and dragged Jenny out of bed, but the tension hanging between them was loosening slowly, and she wasn't about to risk that over something she could do just as easily on her own.

Abbie planted her shovel on the ground and leaned on it for a while, staring. She muttered, "I bet _this_ doesn't happen in Quantico, either." and started in.

After twenty minutes' work with no path to any of the doors, the bucket cooled and beginning to freeze over, she'd called the station and sent a text to Crane, gone back inside for a broom and called the property manager about renting an indoor parking space when her lease came up for renewal. Or at the very last, a pull-in outdoor space. Straight to voicemail.

Sunrise showed some progress, with a path to the front half of the car; she was just pouring a fresh gallon of hot water down the frozen-shut driver's door when Crane made is entrance: silhouetted against the sun with a snow shovel slung over his shoulder like a musket. Abbie put the bucket down and slid down the side of the car door, into a seat on top of it. Her own shovel stood, leaning, in the drift on the building-side of the car, the broom propped up beside it.

She was laughing the kind of laugh that wouldn't stop until it had finished with her by the time he reached her. When she was done, she looked up with her head tilted slightly to one side.

"You seriously walked here from the cabin? In _this_?"

"I had thought you might be in want of aid. I sent a voice mail to you … "

"Left my phone inside — y'know what, let's divide and conquer. I'll keep going at the front, you start in around the back, and maybe we'll actually finish this thing before ten."

The rest of the job went faster with two people — once they got a rhythm going. And also once they realized they were flinging snow into the open space each other had cleared — not her finest hour, but it had also been a while since Abbie had had help with, well. Too many of the things in life that went faster and smoother with a partner.

And then, except for the eight-inch tall snow-hat on the roof and the hood that just needed brushing off, they were done.

"The shovels are coming in with us this morning. I'm not wading back through that again," she gestured to the as-yet-still-snow-covered walk, "If I don't have to."

Crane came over to stand beside her, planting his shovel off to the side. He said, "All told, not bad. "

Abbie's breath fogged in the air — high of thirty or not, it was still early enough to file the day under, _too damn cold_. She asked, "Is it July, yet?"

"It _could_ be infinitely colder." Crane replied. "The weather today is practically balmy."

"You grew up in the middle of the Little Ice Age. It warped your standards."

"If by 'warped', you mean that one might safely venture out of doors without one's coat, and return with all one's fingers and toes attached and intact … "

Crane turned away, heading around back of the car.

It might not be warm enough to be _alive_ right now, but it _was_ warm enough that the snow could be packed. Abbie scooped up a double-handful of snow and formed into a snowball, the kind that would fly at speed and shatter on impact. She flung it at the back of Crane's head; it made a satisfying _thwak_ when it hit home.

He turned abruptly. "What was that for?"

"It's not even twenty degrees out! I can _feel_ my _face_!"

Crane scooped snow off the roof of the car bare-handed, and replied, "But _not_ your eyes _inside_ your skull."

"Oh no," Abbie said, backing away.

He made a show of his approach, keeping the car between himself and Abbie, using every advantage the extra foot-and-change he had gave him.

"Let it be known, Miss Mills, that it was you who fired the first shot."

It was almost like he'd thrown and the snowball and it hit her square in the chest in the same instant. She looked down, brushed the snow from herself, and then made another snowball.

"It is _on_," she called back, and then she was around the other side the car with her snowball in her hands.

She didn't aim for Crane himself, but the snow-laden branch drooping over his head. The impact freed the entire tree of its load; most of it fell down directly on Crane's head and shoulders. He stood there, almost transfixed, looking upward where the snow had been before it was on _him_.

"Let it be known," Abbie parroted, "That there's not a Mills around who won't fight dirty if — "

She was cut off by the snowball hitting her; in the next few minutes she lost track of who'd thrown what, when, where, and at whom.

Abbie got caught up in the mad scramble to pack and throw; duck and get any obstruction she could between herself and Crane's snowballs. She slipped and went tumbling into the banked snow a couple of times, but so did Crane, and when they ended up side by side beneath the tree they were both breathless and _very_ close to laughter.

"Truce!" Crane cried, waving his hand back and forth over his head.

Now Abbie did laugh; she replied when she had caught her breath. "Done with winter yet?"

"Not in the least. We are, however, drawing the attention of passers-by."

"Let 'em stare," Abbie said.

She levered herself up again after a few more minutes. When they got in — only half an hour late and soaked through to the skin — Wendy took one thorough look at the two of them and said she didn't want to know.


End file.
